Blogging Cool Tool of the Week – Website Twitter Cards

Some of the best blog posts fail to offer any real ROI. Why? Writing great content is only half the battle. Great content requires SEO and great promotion if it is going to “fly”!

One of the best places to promote your content is Twitter. However, one random tweet promoting your blog post is unlikely to deliver mass traffic to your blog post. In fact, just like an advertising campaign you will need to tweet multiple times over multiple days to get noticed. Even if I tweet my content out 2-3 times a day for 5 days, how can I give my tweet the best chance to be seen?

I am going to show you one of the ways you can generate a quick Website Twitter Card that will ensure your tweet stands out of the pack.

What are Website Twitter Cards?

Website Twitter Cards allow us to create a url that not only links to our content, but also adds a rich image, text and a “call to action” button to your tweet. Twitter Cards if created well have a far better chance than a regular tweet + link does of grabbing a “readers” attention in a busy twitter feed.

To create a Twitter Card for your blog post you must have enabled ads on Twitter account. What does that mean? Quite simply – you have added your credit card details. NB. You do not need to have run any ads to create a website twitter card. Once you are set up for Twitter Ads just log in to Twitter and click into the ads section. (Select ads from your settings menu on the right hand side of your page).

To Find Twitter Cards. Select Twitter Ads in your settings

Once in the Ads section select the “creatives” tab and select “cards”.

Add a call to action button for your card, (“View Now” and “Read More” are probably the most appropriate options)

A Great Image and carefully crafted text are vital for an effective Twitter Card.

Make sure your image looks sharp. Crop you image if needed.

Once your card is created you can instantly tweet it out to your followers or even schedule it for a later date. There is also the option to create a Promoted Tweet campaign. Promoted Tweets are Twitter ads that allow you to reach targeted prospects with your message. Ads can target any twitter user regardless of whether they are following you or not. So if you have an amazing blog post that you believe will generate awareness and ultimately sales this may be an option worth considering.

My advice with twitter ads is to spend small amounts (eg. €20-50) and see if it delivers results before committing “big bucks” to your twitter ad campaign.

You can Publish, Schedule or even create a Twitter Ad campaign with your Twitter Card.

Quick Tip – When a twitter card is created you can see the unique url. Eg.

I can use that url in multiple future tweets. I use Hootsuite to schedule some of content for twitter, so I can add my URL with my preferred text and send out my Twitter Card tweet from there.

You can reuse your Twitter Card as often as you like. In fact multiple tweets are important if you want your tweet to be seen.

If you use a “Click to Tweet” type plugin on your blog you can add the twitter card url to ensure that when your tweet is shared by a reader it is shown as a Twitter Card and not a plain tweet.

Would you like to watch a quick video demo? If so here is a quick one I made including me doing some Darth Vader style breathing (not intended;))

Finally, this is the tip of the iceburg when it comes to Twitter Cards. If you have a WordPress site there are some super plugins that will add Twitter Card functionality to your site. We use Yoast, but there are a number of other alternatives.

If your objectives are purely sales orientated you may also want to look at “Lead Generation” Twitter Cards.

An International Social Media trainer delivering regular LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and Social Business Strategy training and workshops for institutions such as the Digital Marketing Institute, Sure Skills and the Digital Skills Academy.
In 2014 I have worked with top multinationals including: Ulster Bank, Microsoft, UPC and Coca Cola Hellenic.
Alongside training I work as a Social Business Consultant. I believe that in order to make social media work for your business you must have a clear business goal, a clearly defined strategy and make sure that everything you do is measurable.